Growing tired at last, and exhausted by the excessive heat and sultriness of the day, we returned to our friend, the trader.  By this time the crowd around him had dispersed, and left him at leisure.  He invited us to his cottage, a little white-and-green building, in the style of the old French settlements; and ushered us into a neat, well-furnished room.  The blinds were closed, and the heat and glare of the sun excluded; the room was as cool as a cavern.  It was neatly carpeted too and furnished in a manner that we hardly expected on the frontier.  The sofas, chairs, tables, and a well-filled bookcase would not have disgraced an Eastern city; though there were one or two little tokens that indicated the rather questionable civilization of the region.  A pistol, loaded and capped, lay on the mantelpiece; and through the glass of the bookcase, peeping above the works of John Milton glittered the handle of a very mischievous-looking knife.

Our host went out, and returned with iced water, glasses, and a bottle of excellent claret; a refreshment most welcome in the extreme heat of the day; and soon after appeared a merry, laughing woman, who must have been, a year of two before, a very rich and luxuriant specimen of Creole beauty.  She came to say that lunch was ready in the next room.  Our hostess evidently lived on the sunny side of life, and troubled herself with none of its cares.  She sat down and entertained us while we were at table with anecdotes of fishing parties, frolics, and the officers at the fort.  Taking leave at length of the hospitable trader and his friend, we rode back to the garrison.

Shaw passed on to the camp, while I remained to call upon Colonel Kearny.  I found him still at table.  There sat our friend the captain, in the same remarkable habiliments in which we saw him at Westport; the black pipe, however, being for the present laid aside.  He dangled his little cap in his hand and talked of steeple-chases, touching occasionally upon his anticipated exploits in buffalo-hunting.  There, too, was R., somewhat more elegantly attired.  For the last time we tasted the luxuries of civilization, and drank adieus to it in wine good enough to make us almost regret the leave-taking.  Then, mounting, we rode together to the camp, where everything was in readiness for departure on the morrow.

CHAPTER IV

“Jumping off”

The reader need not be told that John Bull never leaves home without encumbering himself with the greatest possible load of luggage.  Our companions were no exception to the rule.  They had a wagon drawn by six mules and crammed with provisions for six months, besides ammunition enough for a regiment; spare rifles and fowling-pieces, ropes and harness; personal baggage, and a miscellaneous assortment of articles, which produced infinite embarrassment on the journey.  They had also decorated their persons with telescopes and portable compasses, and carried English double-barreled rifles of sixteen to the pound caliber, slung to their saddles in dragoon fashion.